Southern Nuggets

Before I post this, I'm going to go through my past entries and place an asterisk after the titles to indicate that post as a recipe. (Two asterisks if I REALLY like the recipe) Again, I'm not attempting to create a food blog, that is just where we are starting because my first exploration is becoming a vegetarian so of course we're going to talk about food! Not every post will have a recipe, but I think for the times there is something yummy - you should know immediately where to find it. My transition to eating mostly vegetables has been getting easier. I haven't been trying  to do it, I've just been finding myself more in the habit to do it. Unfortunately, in this increasing habit I sacrificed the bacon this morning. I knew that I needed to cook it. I attempted to fry potatoes with bacon for breakfast. Right when I opened the bag I could smell the sour aromas.  I can't say my dog complained any. So breakfast ended up just being potatoes with c

I hadn't realized my bun was upside down until just now. Oops!  For anyone who may have been shaking their head at my near-miss of a full vegetarian day in the last entry, I have news for you. This weekend, I made Saturday true vegetarian status. I intend to aim for today also (I'm actually writing this on a Sunday) but have something in mind for dinner that might make me waiver a bit. But yeah, this weekend we joined my sister's family in the country for Thanksgiving weekend. It was good times. Yesterday, after we officially were woke up - I say "officially" because I had been awake since around 7 a.m. when my niece, who's 2 and slept besides me opened her eyes, rolled over. Then once she saw I was awake, with a big smile said, "Good Morning, Uncle Tysis! (that's what they call me.) Then jumped out of bed and hit the ground running. Somewhere after eight the family came in saying, "Good Morning, breakfast is ready!" I'm n

Today, instead of writing about my breakfast or lunch from the past two days - neither of which were very exciting, I'm going to talk about my first Southern Thanksgiving. We arrived at our Aunt's house just in time to help her set up the second table and complete the small odds and ends that needed to get done before the bulk of the family arrived. The woman whom I call my aunt isn't really my aunt. In fact, I just met her shortly after arriving into Georgia. My sister grew up with her kids and has always seen her as a second mom. Considering we are so far from home, she adopted us into her family. She's an extremely good-hearted woman, married to a wonderfully, good-hearted man so I, we, couldn't have been more fortunate. Then my oldest niece took me and a family friend on a tour of the farm. Back in Nevada, I grew up on a ranch filled with horses and cattle. We raise cattle for beef; feeding America. lol So being out in the country isn't something that

Before I begin, question...does anyone else, when eating broccoli, still imagine themselves as dinosaurs devouring small trees, like when we were kids? Because I do, all the time. I realized this while chopping up the florets into "bit size" pieces as the instructions detailed. I also realized that I have no real idea what a floret is. Also, I don't know the proper way to cut vegetables so every time I'm chopping up dinner I question if there's a better way to do it. Probably. This blog is a late entry and for this I apologize. I intended to whip up tonight's dish last night in order to post it this morning, but my sister made some good looking sloppy-joes so I figured I'd join the fun. Then I was on a role tonight when it comes to the office, behind the scene stuff, so I had to force myself to step away from the computer to begin preparing dinner. Knowing that I promised you an entry today, I wanted to follow through with it and declined an impromptu

Well, not eaten together of course. Since my personal fast ended Saturday, I found myself in the position to give the "no meat" effort towards all my meals today. So for breakfast, I switched things up a bit - shifting from my traditional meal of bacon, eggs and peanut butter & jelly on bread to oatmeal with peanut butter & jelly on bread. Now, I do understand that it would be more Southernly correct to whip up some grits for breakfast, but grits for breakfast just doesn't seem right to me. Shortly after arriving here I was introduced to grits and cheese, a side dish during dinner. I have to admit, it was well enjoyed. Then sometime ago, my sister made a pot for breakfast. I admit to cheating as I added some sugar, but it wasn't all that bad - just different. It did fill me up though and held me to lunch. Last week a friend brought us breakfast from a small Café here in town. Grits came as a side. As a side it was perfect, standing alone...well, let&#

Before I begin, I just wanted to let y'all know that I've decided on making Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays the official entry dates. Meaning, new entries will be posted three times a week, with the occasional Saturday - such as today. So far, I've been surprised by how many people seem to be reading. Thank you! Should you have any suggestions or recipes, feel free to shoot me a message or email and let me know so I can work in the changes or try out the good eats. That said - now for a short story about potatoes and the birth of my very first compostor. Every community has their staple foods - something all other dishes seem to stem from or have included. For the Asian community it's rice, for example. As one can expect, having grown up in Northern Nevada/Southern Idaho - ours was potatoes. For readers outside the United States, Idaho is known to be the capitol of potatoes here within the states. In fact, a nick-name that I acquired during my first year of colla

I regret not having thought through trying to become vegetarian BEFORE I went grocery shopping. Yesterday was one of those days where by the time dinner rolled around, all I really wanted to do was pop in a pizza and have at it. As I found myself digging through the pantry, I realized that I I didn't change my shopping habits before I splurged for food. Supreme Pizza, Hamburger Helper, Lunch Meat, Chicken Soup, Chicken Marinara Frozen Food, etc. So I reached for my phone. I've saved a variety of recipes that I've found this week. Many sounded wonderful, but their ingredient list was about as complex as the directions on how to prepare it. Typically I see such adventures as fun, in this particular moment, I wasn't having it. Had it not been for this blog, I would have just fried some sliced potatoes with diced hot-dogs, something of a comfort food of mine. But I wanted to offer something for today. It seems that's how most food blogs and recipes are though, c

"Anna, I bought some curry sauce mix and all the directions say are to add onions, then the meat, then the vegetables before adding some water and breaking these cubes apart and adding them. It doesn't tell me how much water or how much curry. I've never done this before. Help!" That was the Snapchat I sent to my Asian friend Anna who lives in Sacramento shortly after I read the instructions on the side of the curry box. I've had curry before. I love curry....never cooked with it. Things were not starting out on a good foot. It wasn't long after she sent a reply. "That's weird. I've never seen it come in cubes before. Try just adding a little water and one cube at a time and adjust it to your taste." With that understanding, I dove into my next attempt. This dish would in fact be 100% vegetarian (unless they snuck something into the curry sauce, but it says "no meat contained." So, I think we're good.) What is

Thai Vegetable Stir Fry Saturday night, I figured I would give a more Asian-ie recipe, compared to the Ramen Noodles, a try. Mostly, because I wanted to start to figure out how to use some of the ingredients in my "Asian cupboard." After searching the web, I found one that seemed both tasty as it was simple to throw together. As a reminder, I'm a beginner at cooking vegetables as an entree and also in using the unique flavors such as fish sauce and oyster sauce. Things didn't start on a good note when, while mixing together the sauce, I became aware that I lacked ginger and lime. I searched the cabinet for anything I could substitute in, but in regard to ginger - the only thing I could think of was lemongrass. I didn't have that either. My sister is a Southern girl and the spice cabinet is very much a reflection of that: steak seasoning, garlic powder, cumin, Cajun seasoning, dill weed, pepper, salt, the list continues. Fish sauce - let me say right now,

As stated in the previous entry, the inspiration for the blog and the first exploration...becoming a vegetarian. To quickly recap, I was born and raised in Northern Nevada. Our family business, raising cattle for beef (There's a Tyson Chicken and something of a Tyson Beef. HA! HA! Who knew?) and recently moved to Central Georgia where I fell in loved with Southern Cooking. I decided it's time to devour just vegetables...and fish....occasionally.  This is something that I've considered for about a year and a half to two years - honestly. However, the obstacles comes down to two things: I do love meat (yum!) and despite how much I love vegetables, unless I can master making vegetable only dishes tasting BOMB-DIgGITY, yes, let's revisit 1999, I just said that - I'm going to come to dread eating. And I love food!  I asked my friends on Facebook for their favorite vegetable only dishes and although this generated a response, it mostly just got me to surf

My name is Tyson. These days, when I meet new people you might hear me introduce myself as, "Hi! I'm Tyson - like the fighter or the chicken. But I'm more of a chicken." It usually generates a good laugh and an easy way for people to remember who I am. It is something that I've worked on my entire life, however. I don't know why, but I have always been annoyed when people say, "Tyson? Like Mike Tyson." My irritation only grew when I found out that I was born in 1985, BEFORE Mike Tyson became famous so I wasn't named after him. In addition, my family used to make Tyson Food jokes all the time growing up. I hated it. One such name, "Tyson Chicken Nuggets" that was coined not only because of my name, but also the fact that I was pretty heavy as a kid. Especially in grades 4-8. Just as I turned the memory aides into something I actually liked. For the record, I really am a chicken. I hate violence. I thought I'd play upon one of